Myron M. Kinley

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Myron M. Kinley was a pioneer in fighting oil well fires. He was born in Pasadena, California on July 4, 1896 and died on May 12, 1978.^[1] Myron's father was an oil-well shooter in California, dynamiting wells to fracture the rock in increase flow. In 1913, faced with a roaring fire resulting from a blowout he tried blowing it out with a giant "puff" of dynamite explosion. It worked and still remains a common technique.

A driller or well operator with a blazing blowout that was burning $10,000 worth of oil every day would pay a great deal to get it put out quickly. Young Myron, who helped with the first shot, went on to make a business of oil well firefighting, and essentially founded the trade. Although it was lucrative, it had its risks. Kinley died in bed, much battered, but many of the men who worked with him — or tried to compete with him — did not.^[2] Along the way he developed many of the techniques of the trade and trained others in their use, including Red Adair. Virtually every organization in the oil well firefighting business today can trace its roots back to his MM Kinley Company.